Daniels, Purdue faculty in test of wills

President Mitch Daniels wants a standardized way to measure student body's intellectual growth. Faculty wants to slow down and get it right. Who will give?

Purdue President Mitch Daniels said he has confidence that faculty members can come up with a way to measure student growth in critical thinking. He and university trustees want Purdue to start tracking that in a standardized way in fall 2015. Faculty members have recommended holding off until fall 2016.(Photo: File photo/Journal & Courier)

Neither side is willing, just yet, to call it a showdown over standardized testing at Purdue University.

But there's no question that lines are being drawn between a Purdue administration that wants an annual measure of students' intellectual growth in place by this fall and faculty members who say they need another year to come up with a solid, academically valid standard.

The fight over accountability is about to come to a head, starting as soon as Monday. That's when President Mitch Daniels goes before the University Senate, where faculty leaders promise to grill him.

Since Daniels was announced as Purdue's 12th president in June 2012, faculty members have watched and waited for this moment, when their sense of academic standards would be tested by a leader groomed not by campus traditions but by corporate business models.

There have been flare-ups and some shadowboxing in the past two years, including the controversy over academic freedom and Daniels' take as governor on whether the books of leftist historian Howard Zinn belonged in K-12 classrooms.

But the question of standardized testing to measure the development of students' critical-thinking skills between their freshmen and senior years is shaping up as a fundamental clash of philosophies between Daniels and the faculty that everyone knew would come sooner or later.

Whether they call it a showdown is beside the point. That's what it is.

Trustees' expectations

Just how far apart the two sides are was evident on Dec. 19.

That afternoon, Kirk Alter and Patrick Kain were being picked apart by Purdue trustees in a third-floor meeting room at Stewart Center.

As members of a Student Growth Task Force oversight committee created in May 2014, Alter and Kain were among the faculty members asked to come up with a test or combination of ways that could prove to the outside world that students make critical thinking gains while on the West Lafayette campus.

The university held off initial plans to start testing last fall, instead going with a pilot study, using a handful of potential tests, administered to some of this year's freshmen.

After the pilot, Kain and Alter laid out a number of questions still unresolved about what that trial effort actually showed; the cost; the number of students needed to make a good sample group; and doubts about the motivation of students who would need to take the test as seniors to make the project statistically worthwhile.

No questions were bigger for the faculty members than these: What is Purdue saying counts as intellectual growth? And how does the university design a meaningful, academically sound test — or, more likely, combination of tests — around that?

Their recommendation: Keep researching and aim to start in earnest in fall 2016.

Alter made a pitch that if the university slowed down, looked at all the pieces of data possible and put those together in the right way, Purdue could become the new industry leader on studying student growth in critical thinking. He turned to another field for an analogy, comparing it to what researchers started in 1948 in Framingham, Massachusetts, as they looked for ways to measure heart disease risks. The Framingham Heart Study, now overseen by Boston University, remains a name brand, industry standard in heart disease research.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we put the Purdue brand on student growth and really identify how to measure that ... to be the next Framingham study for longitudinal growth?" Alter asked the trustees.

The trustees weren't buying it. One after another, they wanted to know what the holdup was and why something couldn't be rolled out and adjusted as needed later. The consensus, summed up by Trustee Don Thompson: "Let's begin."

Daniels ended the conversation.

"You got a one-year extension. You're asking for a second year," Daniels told professors. "How about we get going on the meat and potatoes of critical learning and not put that off another 12 months? … There could be a little learn-by-doing involved, too."

"I heard the trustees say something to the effect of, 'Don't let perfect get in the way of good,' " said Patty Hart, chairwoman of the University Senate and a member of the trustees' Academic Affairs Committee. "My response was, 'Don't let unacceptable get in the way of good.'

Patty Hart, chairwoman of the University Senate, said faculty members are concerned that President Mitch Daniels and the Purdue Trustees are putting speed ahead of proper research in a plan to start tracking student intellectual growth with standardized tests by fall 2015.(Photo: File photo/Journal & Courier)

" 'Let's go' might be the right attitude in certain situations," Hart said. "But right now, we don't even know what the stakes are. … There's a line here between doing it fast — doing it now — and doing it the right way. That's not a line I think we're ready to cross."

President's starting point

Daniels arrived at Purdue in January 2013 convinced that universities — Purdue included — were under the gun to prove a degree is worth the money required to obtain it.

Part of his job, he figured, was to show that Purdue was doing all it could to keep things affordable, which led to three consecutive years of tuition freezes and reduced rates in residence halls.

Another part of his job, he said, was proving — beyond issuing diplomas— that Purdue students left campus with more critical-thinking skills than the day they arrived.

"Academically Adrift" fit squarely within Daniels' affinity for metrics and being able to boil things down into something more than hazy assurances of accomplishment. Before coming to Purdue, as a two-term governor, he'd championed similar, easy-to-read grades for K-12 schools in Indiana and tying teacher pay in part to student performance.

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The question of standardized testing to measure the development of students’ critical-thinking skills between their freshmen and senior years is shaping up as a fundamental clash of philosophies between Purdue President Mitch Daniels and the faculty that everyone knew would come sooner or later.(Photo: John Terhune/Journal & Courier)

In the book, authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa used data, including a standardized test called the Collegiate Learning Assessment, to measure students' critical-thinking skills. Their conclusion: 36 percent of the students they tracked made no significant gains during their four years in school.

In a May 2014 article in Forbes, William Bennett, former U.S. secretary of education and co-author of "Is College Worth It?", went as far as to tout the CLA+ as a good starting point to tie federal funding to improved student academic outcomes on American campuses.

'Paralysis by analysis'

As popular suspicions spread about grade point average inflation, student debt and the payoff of job placement, Daniels calls student growth assessments an accountability tool Purdue should have — and shouldn't fear.

"It's just like the Gallup-Purdue Index poll of our graduates," Daniels said, referring to a year-old project to gauge the success and satisfaction of Purdue graduates years after they leave campus.

"We already had a lot of anecdotal evidence that told us that if you successfully completed a Purdue degree, you'll not only do better, but you'll do better than if you'd graduated from most other schools," Daniels said. "Now we know it. And we'd like to know that about the on-campus years, as well, that's all."

Daniels said he and the trustees have tried to be clear that now is the time.

"In this area, we would hardly be in front. There are scores of schools doing this," Daniels said. "I'm indifferent to what measuring tool we use or how we use it. That's an absolute classic question for the faculty to decide. … But this should not become one of those paralysis-by-analysis, permanent procrastination exercises."

Faculty: 'Prove what you say it proves'

Hart said faculty members don't bristle at the suggestion for another measure of accountability.

"Though we think we're doing a pretty good job of it already," she said.

And she makes a case that faculty aren't dragging their feet. But she said the push for speed and a willingness to adjust on the fly cuts against the grain of people trained to do deliberate, peer-reviewed research.

"You have to have a very careful design that proves what you say it proves," Hart said. "So this is quite different than a public opinion poll, a consumer poll or a poll about elections. This is research that will stand the test of time and stand up to scrutiny. … You don't just write it on the back of a napkin."

Jankowski said standardized testing to measure student growth at universities has leveled off recently.

"I don't want to use the word 'stagnant,' " she said, "but there's not a lot of growth."

One of the biggest reasons, Jankowski said, is that universities quickly find that while it's easy to get incoming students to take tests during freshman orientation, it's difficult to get seniors to do the same, unless there's some graduation requirement to take the exit exam.

"They're busy trying to finish all they need to finish," Jankowski said. "Another test — especially one that doesn't make a difference in whether they get a diploma — isn't something they want to do."

Jankowski said the way the student assessment rollout is happening at Purdue is a familiar scene.

"A lot of times, (it's a situation) where the president says, 'Pick something. We need to care about this. Let's do it,' " Jankowski said. "When assessment starts at those institutions, very externally driven, it becomes immediately seen as a burden, as an add-on, not something that faculty feel that they own or that is part of the scope of their work. Which is really unfortunate, because it's about students and their learning, which is what faculty are all about."

'Nervous about things they shouldn't be'

Hart said that as long as faculty members are being asked to design how Purdue measures student growth between freshman year and senior year, they aren't prepared to sign off until it's done right. That means a student growth testing design that lays out the goals, the proper sample sizes and how the information will be used.

Hart said Daniels can expect that conversation, with plenty of pointed questions, Monday afternoon when he meets with the University Senate, a 102-member faculty governing board.

Daniels offered some answers in advance.

• Will Purdue's test include different standards depending on discipline?

"You're not interested in delving into which discipline or which college or even which course produces better students," Daniels said. "You just want to know, as an institution, are we enabling students who come in to collectively learn and grow and refine these basic skills? That's all."

• What about assumptions or fears that the results would be used against faculty? Can you see how faculty might be wary, given your history with K-12 school reform?

"If people have that question, they deserve an answer," Daniels said. "The answer is: No way. No interest in that. … I was surprised, but I probably shouldn't be, that lots of folks get nervous about things they shouldn't be."

So, what happens if, as this semester winds down, faculty members don't have a measure they feel comfortable with and trustees are still insisting "Let's go"?

Hart's take: "There's no way someone is going to say, 'Well, that's not very good, but let's go ahead and do it anyway.' That's not what we do. Either it's worthwhile or it isn't."

Daniels' take: "This can't be beyond our capabilities. I think the folks on that committee, they want to get to an answer. And I'm hopeful that they will. But we can always go back to the recommendation of the first group. … This is something we're going to get done at Purdue."

They're not calling it a showdown between faculty and Daniels. But the lines have been drawn.